“Quite. I don’t know when you last dated, Dick, but this is my first since my Alan died three years ago, and he was the man I last dated, forty-eight years ago, in 1968.”

“So when did you join lastflingdating.com, Grace?”

“Two weeks ago. You’re my first SIMM. You?”

“I’ve been on it since the start. Must have had thirty or more meet-ups. They used to call them meet-ups, only started calling them ‘Senior I Must Meet’ about six months ago.”

“Oh. Didn’t know that.”

“So, Grace. What’ve you got against this place?”

“Let me explain something to you, Dick. I am a woman of a certain age, yes?”

“I wouldn’t have said that, Grace. You’re just the right age for me.”

“Drop the flannel. Whichever way you look at it, sixty-six isn’t the first flush of youth. Anyway, for our first date, Alan took me up to the Odeon in Leicester Square to see ‘Gone with the Wind’. Even brought a few packs of tissues with him in case I needed them. And I did; quite a few. That film was the most beautiful, moving tear-jerker I have ever seen. At the end, when Scarlett said, “tomorrow is another day” and the credits started to roll, I was inconsolable. Yet Alan managed to settle me, and afterwards, over what has to be the best hot dog I ever tasted, I realised that I had fallen for him; hook, line and sinker.”

“So soon?”

“I knew straight away that he didn’t enjoy the film. It cost him a lot of money to get us into London to see it. I kept looking at him, to see if he showed any signs of being annoyed or put out by my reactions to any of it. He didn’t. I saw then, that I had found a real gentleman; one who put my comfort and happiness before his own; one who managed to impress me without seeming to try. In short, a man who was, without question, on my wavelength.”

“And you never regretted taking up with him?”

“We had a brief, but intense courtship. Alan was a bit of a philosopher, as well as being the cleverest man I ever met. He had this thing about outscoring both teams on University Challenge. Every week. I can only remember a handful of occasions when he didn’t manage it. And you know what he did then?”

“What?”

“He congratulated the teams that beat him.”

“They wouldn’t be able to hear him though, would they?”

“Oh, he didn’t do it like that. He sent a postcard to each member of each team, through their university, just saying how impressed he was with their knowledge. He never said anything about them beating him, though. Wasn’t his way. I asked him about it once. ‘When I congratulate them,’ he said, ‘it isn’t about me; it’s about them. I congratulate them on their performance. I don’t want to compare them with myself or anyone else.’ He just signed the cards ‘Alan, a seriously impressed viewer’.”

“What did Alan do for a living?”

“When we met, he was a medical student. He had a number of jobs during our time together; ended up an itinerant professor of medicine and medical ethics; a job that took him all over the English-speaking world – and he always took me with him.”

“You must miss him terribly.”

“I do. But you know what?”

“What?”

“All the places he took me; starting with the Leicester Square Odeon, right up to the last place he ever took me, the Jules Verne restaurant half-way up the Eiffel Tower; he never brought me to a place like this.”

“Why not? What’s wrong with it?”

“Why not? Because Alan knew that a place where young women cavort around half-naked while you’re trying to eat is not a suitable place to bring a lady you’ve got any respect for. That’s why not.”

“But it’s harmless fun. And it’s part of the local culture. They’re dressed according to their traditions.”

“Tell that to the marines. I’m going.”

“Where?”

“Home. To rate this so-called date on lastflingdating.com!”

I wrote this in response to Kreative Kue 68, issued on this site earlier this week. Feel free to join in; just follow the link.

I’ve done both of those – as an 18-year old, I was working with a charity in London in 1969 and took a group of seven teenaged girls to the Leicester Square Odeon to see ‘Gone with the Wind’ (you don’t want to know the cost in tissues), and about seven years ago, a friend or our daughter treated us to lunch at the Jules Verne restaurant. Your husband must be a good guy to take you there (I’m assuming your 20th wasn’t in 1968!)

By continuing to use the site, you agree to the use of cookies. more information

The cookie settings on this website are set to "allow cookies" to give you the best browsing experience possible. If you continue to use this website without changing your cookie settings or you click "Accept" below then you are consenting to this.